Europe by bike: welcome to the blog
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Departure
Fully loaded and we're off! Exchanging the van for a tent and two bikes
Fairlight
Skylarks, nuthatch, oystercatchers. My front tyre burst and we repaired it. Pink cloud, pinker blossom. Good spirits, better company.
On the ferry
No longer on home turf. Rose today to pastel mist, the house sparrows scattering like fluttering woodchips. A wren, stag-beetle sized, torpedoed along the hedge as we cycled by. A female sparrowhawk glimpsed and gone. Now the sun is out, and so are we.
Bonjour!
So far so good, this has been my view for the last two hours. The Avenue Verte is a welcome change from English lanes and hills. Made a new friend who cycled with us from Dieppe ferry port for about 20km, we may catch up again in Paris in a few days. Saw a great crested grebe and buds coming into leaf.
Woodland, farmland, inland
Location somewhat accurate. First taste of 'real' France... enjoyable cycling through secluded country lanes. Chickens in every garden, leeks too. Outside of the scattered towns, the land still feels very homely - though the robins are shyer. Everyone is friendly and you can smell spring. Hopefully Paris tomorrow...
Paris!
Today began with breakfast at sunrise, watching grey wagtails preen on a misty river, running through the miles of countryside. The dawn chorus was as loud as the city traffic we negotiated to get here. This morning we were watching hares chase across the leek fields; 50 slow and beautiful kilometres later we are having dinner with the friends we just made, in their 12th floor apartment in Paris. I can't articulate how much you simply see while traveling on a bicycle. The amount of things that pack into a whole day moving from open farmland, green and grey, through incremental suburbia and into the city's kaleidoscope palate. The amount of things to see.
Today we explored on foot
After staying the night in Paris we decided to make the most of being here and left our bikes in the apartment for the day to explore. Walked around all day; found a parade of sheep, not sure what this event is but apparently hasn't happened in a couple of years. Torn between a desire to take a lot of photos and a need to just soak it up. Cities aren't hugely my thing so preferred to just walk around. Interesting to see Paris from the outside in. Lots of layers to the culture here and surprisingly very quiet; perhaps due to the pandemic? Very excited to get back on the bikes and move into the countryside again.
Second time cycling to Font!
Left Paris yesterday morning - got a rush out of cycling within the city's rush hour traffic. Followed the flow and the Seine out into the sunny suburbs. It was cold and clear. The river took us pretty much all the way to Fontainebleau; this photo was taken at sunset as we entered the forest.
Warming up for a day of bouldering in the forest...
Willow declared a good night's sleep - testament to our gear quality as when I woke up, there was frost inside the tent and my water bottle was frozen solid. Tucked in the woods, we rose slowly.
Font is one of my favourite places in all the world, but my mood has been up and down the last two days. Travelling by bicycle is a fast-track to introspection. This is still our first week on the road and there's a lot to get used to. Yesterday my front mudguard snapped and I also tore a hole in my shorts; this morning I noticed a tiny hole in the outer of our tent. Even when traveling without an apparent plan you have a notion of what you expect to see/do/etc.; and you feel yourself get jolted against those expectations when they don't happen as you thought they would.
We are both feeling the bumps in the road as well as the highlights. I am grateful to have a partner as brave as Willow and as willing to push herself.
I am also grateful for someone like her to help me when I do not feel my bravest.
The conditions were perfect today and it was good to potter around on the rock - hopefully more of the same tomorrow. Refilling our water bottles at the end of the day was a huge relief, we feel more established now and familiar with the place. It also feels good to cook dinner in daylight as the sun sets- hopefully it's not as cold tonight!
Setting up camp
After a day and a half bouldering in Font we are on the road again. Both had a great time on the rock, and both half-tempted to swap our cycle shoes with rock shoes for this trip! We got up early and I managed a quick ascent of the classic Marie Rose. Nice to potter around the rocks with no hard agenda and hang out with other climbers. We met some Americans who had flown to the forest for a week long trip; makes me realise how lucky we are to have Font on our doorstep. I took no pictures while we were there. The line between observing as a photographer and being immersed in moments as a participant is not one I am expert in balancing. More often than not I go overboard in one direction or the other; generally my favourite memories are the ones with hardly any photos. I'd like to improve at this in time, and stop beating myself up over "missed photo opportunities" vs. "actually being there".
It was a real wrench to leave the forest but we have a cycle tour to do! 10km of cycling later, and 2 pain au chocolat reminded us both what this trip is about.
We are now headed for Orléans; which means miles of flat and windy farmland to get through. I'm sure I will bring this up again but I am so impressed by Willow's persistent spirit and can-do attitude. She keeps going and keeps on being resourceful no matter what happens. There's no complaining from her; an occasional waver in self-belief maybe but no complaining or scapegoating. It's inspiration to me.
We made early camp in a copse of elder. Trees are hard to come by in this land of open fields. As we ate dinner the farmer who owns the land drove up across the grass. I braced for him to tell us to leave - instead he enthustically showed us the beehives he keeps in the trees, and wished us a good night's sleep and goodluck on the ride.
The sun sets slowly, and as I write this a roe deer is cleaning its antlers on a dead tree a few yards away. A buzzard mews its way across the perimeter of the trees; some small birds sweetly murmur their subsong into the gloaming. Maybe it's lapwings I can hear. The tractors have stopped work, the thrush trills one more time - now the deer has spotted me and bounds away into the crops, its rump flashing like white bread popping out the toaster as it hurdles the foliage. It stops and checks me out one last time before it melts away. The copse is now ours for the night.
We shall leave it as still as this when we depart in the morning - probably the only other signs of motion will be the sun gently tracing its waking reach across the crispy beech leaves.
On The Loire
First thing I heard this morning was the buzzard again, just before first light, mewing her way around the trees. Despite last night's self-assurance we'd leave the copse early this morning, while we were packing down I noticed my rear brakes had been knocked out of alignment and it took an hour or so for me to (sort-of) recalibrate them. At least the sun was shining!
We hit the road around 10:00 and made fast progress (easy when your back brake doesn't work properly) along the D roads towards Orléans. All things considered, it was the most boring stretch of the ride yet - flat and featureless fields with barely any traffic. Highlights included a man fishing in a village pond, and distant deer. We counted a trio of kestrels enjoying the tailwind that we were also flying along with.
Today was shorts and shirt weather. Made it to Orléans feeling crabby - no wonder, we hadn't eaten lunch and it was about 15:30! Filled up on pastries and fromage. Outside the supermarché we were hailed by some electricity workers who were on strike. They brought us some coffee and bottles of water, and we had a half-hour's chat with them in very broken French (ours, not theirs). Travelling by bike seems to make you instantly interesting to other people, at least if my experiences are anything to go by. If you want to encounter generosity and conversation, go for a big bike ride somewhere - anywhere - and you will make friends in the unlikeliest places.
We left Orléans and found the Loire, which happily was a sublime change of scene. Countless egrets, herons and some grebes. Very very bumpy in places, the track will take us hopefully all the way to Tours. Pretty amazing scenery for the last 20km of today, and a special sunset too. Camped in a quiet spell of woods with the sound of moorhen for company.
Loire and wide
Miraculously we woke to no rain today. Blissful - honestly - cycling along the Loire, until about 13:00 when it bucketed it down for a few hours. I missed the crossing of the cycle route, back over the river at Blois so we spent the deluge following a busy D road instead of the tranquil cycle path. We took the next bridge across back onto the cycle path and a watery sun re-emerged.
At Mosnes we stopped for a chocolat chaud; while we waited for the café to reopen, some teenagers threw a bottle of coke over us as they drove by. This was a shame but at least we now smell nice! The café stop was worth it for the hot drink we got.
Back in the pleasant woods and following the cycle route - we are both instantly at home in the tranquil surrounds of the trees and recognise the birds calling there as old friends. It must be said this stretch of the route - along the Loire - is one of the most scenic so far. We also saw some camels this morning?! outside Beaugency, which was unexpected. The photo pictured here is not of our current location on the map but taken as we swept through a charming courtyard with a fountain and natural pool, used in times past for washing in. It's lovely to know that we have cycled here from Canterbury without really going on main roads too much.
As I write this I am eating a hot curry/pasta mix I just made, listening to a robin soothe the mild evening from the brambles. The tent door is open, it's noticeably warmer and everything had a chance to dry during the last 10km of clear cycling. Anticipating more wet days in the coming week but for now it is lovely to sit and enjoy a clear evening. Roughly nine days on the bikes together and we are establishing a comfortable routine and pace (think 'rhythm') with the making and breaking of camp each day. I have also discovered that I absolutely love peanut M&Ms.
The kindness of strangers
Woke to grey sky - immediate rain, hasty pack down. We sliced along the winding roads in cold wind. Stopped for a snack at a shelter, and a dog walker invites us to his house for coffee and toast. We make instant friends with his affectionate retriever Hewick and spend a good hour or so in his kitchen with him. The man is a 'sophrologue' - from what I can gather somebody who spends time with people and helps them work through their problems. He has a lot of interesting things to say about mindfulness and the importance of following 'your way'. He is lovely company and another shining example of the kindness of strangers - and reasons to say 'yes' to toast when it's raining.
We disembark at 10:00, the rain has stopped and we are enchanted by Amboise, another delightful town. There are cave-houses built into the cliffs here!
We see a lot of lovely architecture. I also see a black redstart, lesser spotted woodpecker and long-tailed tits! Wouldn't have spotted these if we hadn't been rained out first thing this morning. I am noticing chiff chaffs are the bird we most often hear.
After a lovely winding tour of the vineyards along the river (sadly all dormant), and another stop for chocolat chaud, we make it to Tours, where today's photo is taken. Lunch on the river - an elderly lady cycling past with plants in her basket calls out "bon appetit" as we eat. Another stranger stops to chat and wishes us goodluck.
That is all behind us now - we have pitched camp early to allow our tent to air. Somewhere in thick, old woodland. More birdsong and clear air.
I am savouring this for I hear there is more rain tomorrow.
This is why we travel by bike
Hard to put into words the ingredients of moments that went together so nicely within today's adventures. Every day I wonder what I'll say to sum up the events; every day I'm surprised at the unexpected experiences and actuality of what happens.
At 07:00 this morning we were crouched under canvas, listening to the rain's show of stamina as it rattled our tent. Idly eating the last of the bread and cheese we watched a tick traverse our flysheet; we were safe from the dismal weather and crawling insects - but not for long.
We were low on water and food; besides, who wants to sit in a 6x4' tent all day waiting for the rain to possibly/possibly not clear up? I don't.
We packed down and made the sludgy walk through the wet woods, slouched against the cold metal frames laden with supplies that are only useable in the dry.
Presently we reached a gate: "propriété privée" and then: "chasse en cours - ensemble soyons vigilants" along with an image of wild boar. "Private property. Hunting in progress - together let's be vigilant". Well, good morning to you too.
We crossed back onto public land and the rain continued.
Long story short, we decided to sack off the cycling for today and found a room in the next town. Is it cheating, to palm off the tent for one night and stay in a heated, dry environment? What's the point of roughing it only to cosy up when the going gets tough?
I'm glad we did. We've now had a hot bath, dried our clothes, aired the tent and charged our phones. The rain cleared a few hours later, and now we've had a chance to explore a beautiful town in good spirits that we'd have otherwise beaten our way through with our heads down. The point of this bike ride - and surely, any bike ride - is to be able to stop, look and listen as you please. And I'm so glad we did today. I'm glad it rained.
The light is now beautiful, stark but soft, in that after-rain way. There's a blackbird somewhere - where he is is not important, for we can hear his song coat the town like sonic sunlight. Blossom pink and full, the white bricks here clearer for their recent wash. The chateau over the river is looking extra lovely, full of history I don't know or relate to, but right now its walls are slatted with sunlight filtering through the willow guarding its moats.
This is why we chose to travel by bike. For the random, unplanned and beautiful encounters in places we would never have explored if it weren't for cycling here and being rained on - and places we may never return to. This morning we woke in a tent in the rainy woods, packed all our stuff hastily into bags covered with water and mud - and this evening we are washed and clean so that you could never tell. And tomorrow we will be back in the tent again ready for whatever. Ready to stink and sweat and carry our gear for miles and miles into new places. This is why we travel by bike.
Fast and glorious
If you asked me to describe today in a handful of words, I'd tell you that I couldn't have asked for more.
Whether it was the day of recuperation yesterday, or some other factor, but today has been an absolute delight. Full sun and even heat greeted us this morning and I was raring to get back on the bikes. Our route is taking us currently through the 'Parc Naturel Régional: Loire-Anjou-Touraine'. Maybe it's simply the weather but for the first time it feels like we are really heading south. Scenery is fantastic and I've been looking out for wild boar - sadly no sightings yet. Been another good day for birds though; saw possibly our second merlin of the trip today, and had lunch underneath a kestrel's eyrie, that was situated atop a little church. Not sure if I mentioned this before but Willow spotted a marsh harrier the other day. Even if I did write this up, it's worth mentioning again. We've also seen quite a few silken globe-like nests suspended from the pine trees, that look like they're crawling with caterpillars. Too high up for me to have a proper look though.
If taking in the natural flora and fauna isn't your thing, here's a summary of the day in numbers:
We smashed over 70km of cycling in under 5 hours; and even on some (slight) uphills maintained a speed of between 26-18kmph. During one descent, we just pushed past 60kmph, possibly my record on a push-bike! I'm sure Willow's gone faster than this previously, but either way not bad for fully loaded bikes. Feels incredible to fly through the lovely countryside in sun with minimal traffic. And we found a laundrette en route to boot as well.
Currently tucked away in a dense hedge between two crop fields. Willow is stretching and I am cooking up my pasta/mixed veg/cheese speciality. We can hear wrens ticking in the bushes and distant lapwing beyond the roar of the tractors. Chocolate biscuits for pudding. Sunset leaks like spilt cooking oil and sizzles across the leafy surrounds, charring the shadows black and silent.
So much to see
Another day of many things. I think today kind of summed up the ride so far as we cycled through it all: countryside; quaint towns; flat D roads; winding cycle paths - in woodland, fields and streets; and on busy main roads.
The map photo was taken in the delightful little town of Vouvant, where we passed this afternoon and enjoyed exploring its little lanes on foot for a while. The slight pink tint you may notice in the image isn't a filter - there has been a haze of pollen all across the countryside we've explored today, leaving parked cars covered in pink dust as well as our tent first thing this morning.
We are both in good spirits. I have had an exceptional day simply enjoying Willow's company, even if she's started overtaking me on the uphill stretches.
I get a huge amount of joy to see Willow find her stride and soak it all up, she has this energy when she gets going that's playful and curious, and builds momentum. We eased our way out of the hedge this morning, and she jumps on her bike "let's gooo, I want to put some miles in!" Every so often as she cycles ahead I see her point at something she's spotted and shout to me. "Yellowhammer!" "Look, a buzzard!" "Did you see those flowers?" She has good eyes for spotting things and has shown me hares I would have missed as they crouch in their scrapes.
Today was an exceptional day for wildlife - I saw not just one but two hoopoe feeding in a clearing. Sadly Willow missed them before they scattered but I was off my rocker to see these birds, having never seen them before. Later in the day we both also got to see two beavers at a canal - one grazing in the grass and another slinking through the water. The road is churning up so many surprises.
Have seen a lot more cowslips lining the roadsides, I only just worked out that the name comes from "cow's lips", not "cow slips". It was 19°C at 17:00 today as we cruised through the day's last town. The buildings are looking more Mediterranean in style.
Currently camped further along the aforementioned canal, just plonked on the other side of the hedge from the road. Fingers crossed it stays quiet tonight. We may reach the coast tomorrow.
Back On The Coast
I'm absolutely shattered so keeping this brief.
We found La Vélodyssée today, joining it at Marans. Our route today was bound by water - canals or the coast, and if all goes to plan it will stay like that until we are well into Spain.
We saw a kingfisher today. Heard a lot of reed warbler but didn't spot any. Also spotted another beaver pair, feeding quite close to the road on the grass.
We also solved the mystery of the pink haze in the sky - apparently it's sand from the Sahara that's been blown over to France! It's not pollen at all! Fancy that.
As lovely as it is following the canals, the waterside tracks are very hard to find stealthy camps on. It was getting close to 19:00 and getting dark and we still hadn't found a suitable place to pitch our tent. We'd made it as far as Rochefort, and were scratching our heads about settling down for the night. A few seconds after this photo was taken a cyclist pulls up and asks us where we are going. I explain our route and he offers us a bed for the night. Fast forward an hour and we are in his apartment, cooking dinner and talking. He is a carpenter and as keen to practise English as we are with French. It's amazing how the scenarios we find ourselves in seem to respond to our presence in them. The first night since England that we are struggling to find a place to sleep and someone pops out of the blue and just helps us out. What will tomorrow bring?
The Law of Attraction
I may well find it very hard to worry about the future after this trip. The further that we go and delve into the world around us on our bikes, the more interactions we receive from our environment; and as time goes on, these encounters are becoming more and more relevant and specific to our situation.
Last night - it was getting dark, we had no clue where to stay, and nowhere around to put a tent up. Willow and I are talking it over, wondering what to do. Within a few minutes a stranger appears, talks to us, invites us to his home for the night. He's a mechanic and does a little work on Willow's bike, makes us coffee, turns from stranger to friend.
Today - we leave his place refreshed, and within 2km I have a puncture on my rear wheel. I fix it, pump it up, cycle on. In 500m I have another puncture, same wheel. I fix it, pump it up, cycle on. About 1km later, another puncture. This pattern repeats until I have had about 6 punctures. Not sure why, all I can guess is that my tyres are old and too thin to protect the inner tube (which is also old)?
Anyway, it's frustrating. The constant stop-start, bike grease on my hands, pumping up the tyre over and over again only to find another, new hole in the tube is frustrating.
So we look online and find that there is a bike repair shop about 5km on our route. It's closed till tomorrow, so we decide to walk it out, camp nearby and hopefully buy a new tyre in the morning. We play a game as we walk - name 10 things from the day that we are grateful for.
And we walk, and talk, moving very slowly but at least it's not raining.
We reach the last road before our proposed camp for the night in some trees. And just as we are about to walk off the road, a van pulls up alongside us. The driver calls to us: are the bikes okay, where are we going?
In my best French, I try to explain to him what's happened, that my tyre needs replacing.
He replies: would we like to camp in his garden?
He offers us a lift in his van, and tells me his brother is a bike mechanic, in the process of opening up his own garage. He can fix the bike for us.
Of course, we jump in. We speed off, back up the road.
We drop our stuff off in the stranger's garden, and he then drives me to Decathlon, and helps me pick out a new tyre and inner tube. He even offers to pay for them. He then drives me to his brother's house, where I am given a beer and watch as his brother happily fits my new tyre and inner tube on. The bike shop isn't open yet, and I am his first customer.
As the brother fits the new tyre, his family is gathered around and watches. Only his young daughter and I are silent - she is shy and I have run out of French, so we stand and smile at each other in the sun while it all happens around us.
We leave, head back to our new friend's house. The tent is up in the garden, we are showered. Our friend makes us dinner. We use Google Translate to chat about local cuisine and about the best bike routes to take. He and his wife are among the kindest people I've ever met, they want to make sure we are happy, safe, fed, enjoying our trip. They like to travel by bike too, they experienced kindness from strangers themselves and now take pride in being able to pass it all on.
We talk for hours, we feel at home. We all realise how similar we all are. My bike is fixed and ready to go. I eat the biggest, tastiest meal in weeks. There is jokes, advice, anecdotes, language barriers and understanding.
Almost paradoxically, the best bits of this trip - the most iconic and emblematic parts of this trip - are the parts you cannot bank on or plan for. Everything, right down to the last few seconds, led us up to this; staying an extra day in Paris, putting the miles in so quickly after leaving the Loire, my many punctures today - right down to being on the right road, at the right time and meeting these lovely people in the way we have.
It all fits together so neatly. It's so unpredictable but also so dependable - everything on this trip seems to happen for a reason, you just have to trust in what's happening and go with the flow of what you find.
Bienvenue sur la côte
Possibly the most transformative day of our ride so far, mentally and in terms of scenery.
Incredibly happy - make friends here and you become part of the place rather than simply transiting through it.
Following the waterways we passed through a nature reserve and saw a couple of storks, different ducks and geese, many egrets and heron, and four marsh harrier feeding and foraging. Pretty magical to see so clearly. Reedbeds are special places for wildlife but often you won't see much if the inhabitants choose to hide.
We crossed the bridge into Le Tremblade and were suddenly immersed in a land of sand and pine trees. The sun and sea combine to give authenticity to the lemon and apricot terracotta blocks of houses.
We spy a line of Pine Processionary Moth caterpillars - the culprits responsible for the silken globes we've been spotting; and also responsible for many dog deaths each spring in southern France and in Spain. The caterpillars have toxic hair that is dangerous to whoever comes into contact with it. We count 120 in this conga, and leave them be.
The day ends with the ferry from Royans to Verdon, and the boat trip creates the illusion of having arrived at a secluded island. When we arrive the land behind the harbour is quiet and slow - pines and palms nod in the dusk, the roads flat and wide, the colours soft with haze. It feels exotic. We pitch carefully, feeling like extras in a Robinson Crusoe movie, and fall asleep dreaming of caterpillars and seafood.
Hourtin forest
Flat miles of smooth asphalt only outdone by the sweep of clear sky above. Either side is either pines, dunes or gorse growing in plumes of yellow petals and green thorns.
Occasionally we see the places where people come on holiday - squares of square turf for caravans; second homes, pink roofed and sweet toothed, sharing space with the tranquility that is always here somewhere.
But we see hardly anyone. It is the "off season" here on the south-west coast, and it is ours for the day. We fly along, and play Procession Moth Bingo to kill time. It is a new game we made up - first person to see ten separate moth nests shouts "Bingo!" and wins the round. Willow wins by about 12 rounds to 4.
The weather is perfect, not too hot, not too cold, a tailwind. I shoot nearly a whole roll of photos that will likely look the same and unremarkable to anyone except us. Trees and sky and Willow's bike scooping up the trail with its wheels while I follow and frame up the road as a leading line one more time.
I think about the last town we passed and regret not stopping for coffee, wish I'd taken more time to take more time and soak it all up like a great big sponge and instead I promise myself quietly that I'll be back at the same time of year - maybe next year - and do it all again except actually stop for coffee, but it won't be the same because today we found it all for the first time and had our minds blown by the wonder of seeing a place without any knowledge at all and all the pieces fitting together just as they should do by themselves, so I have to wait for the next town and hope it's just as perfect as today was, without hoping too much or I'll spoil the surprise. So instead I keep pedalling, keep wondering, keep looking and keep thinking about how this is just a bike ride, just a bike ride, just a bike ride.
Things that go bump
A day of two halves. Waking in the motionless pine forest was a surreal experience. The sky above was bright and it was already warm, and the sounds of a distant storm echoed around the shallow valley. Then we realised we could hear the sea; the tide churning and crashing just the other side of the hill.
In the night we woke suddenly, both hearing a dog bark surprisingly close by. Now all is calm and we race the sunlight up the dips of the road. At Lacanau we stop for coffee and watch some men play petanque in the square. This is a great game to watch and makes me wish we had an equivalent fixture at home.
The morning and early afternoon pass by; all trees and shade and the unravelling piste du velo flanked by driftwood and gorse. We also see some birds that I believe are black kites.
I have to wear gloves. There has been a rash on the back of both my hands for the last fortnight - it's not insect bites, and I can't remember when it first appeared. Indeed, I managed to barely notice it until a couple of days ago - now it's raised and red and in the heat of the sun, or in the evening, my hands itch like mad. A combination of covering with gloves, Piriton and hydrocortisone should do the trick - it's not so bad out of the sun. I think it may be a reaction to hogweed - it's possible I brushed some while putting the tent up - but am not sure.
Later on we leave the endless pines and are back amongst buildings. We are refused water at a café and refill at a church instead. Touristy areas can be lovely, but sometimes only if you pay for it.
After several brisk hours skirting suburbia we reach Arcachon as the sun is setting. We are eating dinner in the forest with our headtorches on, when we hear the rustling of an animal quite close by. It sounds large, the noises moving in an arc around us and then fading away into the dark.
I lie in my sleeping bag and listen to Willow breathing next to me and the wind rattling the pine needles.
Europe's largest sand dune
After surviving the night - we didn't hear any more noises but found boar tracks this morning - we scuttled down the road and trekked up the Dune of Pilat, Europe's largest sand dune. We were up there at 08:30 this morning, which meant we had the place to ourselves. Even though the dune was exactly what I was expecting - a huge pile of sand - I wasn't prepared for how surreal it would feel at the top. Swept up in wind and flanked by the blue Atlantic on one side and the green sea of forest on the other, your shins whipped by soft but persistent sand pulled from the surface in the blustery air. We left before the crowds gathered and headed south.
The sun soon turned the temperature to sweating heat, but I was reluctant to stop cycling in case my hands became itchy again once away from the cool breeze on the bikes. The gloves seem to be helping and the rash hasn't flared up today. We ate a quick lunch at Larrigade, overlooking the aqua blue lake and shaded under the tall pines.
Black redstarts are fairly common to see now and we are noticing cork trees here and there.
We made good progress following the meandering Vélodyssée and have pitched an early camp following the sudden arrival of a thunderstorm. We are sheltered in the tent, listening to rain, occasional hail, and a brave robin who flutes out his song in-between the bursts of water. Only one flash of lightning, but I think (hope) the weather is passing. It is the first day of spring after all...
Last night in France?
Broke camp this morning in glorious sunshine, unscathed from last night's storm.
Followed La Vélodyssée through more miles of pines, slightly more hills too - and more cork trees! It's all so beautiful even if it is repetitive!
We have only about 80km until the Spanish border, so this could may well be our last night in France for a while....celebrating with camembert and a carton of jus de pamplemousse. We were treated to an outrageous coastal sunset at Labenne, watching green breakers smash in and in the distance the Pyrenees layered up in purple and orange. Very brief tonight as saving phone battery. Looking forward to dinner then bed! Pitched our tent under a cork tree, and we can hear so many toads croaking around us.
Spain
Our last day in France was as good as it could have been. The sun was the only thing in the sky all day, and kept us company for the final miles along La Vélodyssée.
Our coffee stop in Ondres included some incredible pastries and also being given a bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice by a friendly passer-by. This was a lovely surprise, the pulpy juice palpably richer than commercial produce, a deeper yellow. You never ask for it, but always seem to be on the receiving end of generosity.
The route to the border was about 35km as the crow flies, but for us on the cycle route closer to 75km.
A lot of the scenery was urban and shared with the sea. Bayonne, Biarritz, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Hendaye. The coastal road followed the folds of the rising and falling cliffs, and we followed too. This is a surfer's paradise. If there was a way to ride the hills from bottom to arching top as effortlessly as those in the blue water rode the waves on their boards - catching the currents and floating up and up and in to shore - I'd have thought about taking it. The hills were short - maybe 60m or so, but sharply steep. But I quite like cycling uphill, even on a fully loaded bike. It's amazing to watch Willow take on a hill, especially a long and steep hill, because she does not. Stop. Pedalling. Not even at the top, when she could get away with it. Everything she does is done with pure graft and I'm yet to see anyone with a harder work ethic.
We rattled out the miles, stopping briefly for lunch in Biarritz and frequently to refill our water - it's HOT - but otherwise kept up a keen pace: Spain is almost, almost here.
The coastal towns here seem designed for people much cooler than me. Everyone has perfect hair, a surfboard or a scooter, and style - and I have a weary bike and a grubby pair of shorts and I need a shower.
The Pyrenees has been on the horizon since yesterday and it's been exciting to watch the distant peaks get closer and closer. After a long day, we come into the port at Hendaye and suddenly it's all just over the water. We see more Spanish plates and hear more Spanish conversation. We pass a square lined with fat palms, shading men playing petanque. Surely a fitting symbol of France as we will last see it - inherently French, but with a Mediterranean filter applied.
We follow the water past white beaches to the river mouth. The bridge is just ahead, and I feel the nervousness I seem to reserve especially for border crossings. Then, mundanely, we follow the many others - people on foot, with their bikes, locals who likely do this every day - and cross the water and we are on the other side.
We are now in Spain, inconspicuous and unannounced. Willow has just cycled across a whole country for the first time in her life. The sun is still peering through the gaps in the palms, but it is cooler now. The language around us is suddenly completely new; neither of us speak any Spanish. After 20 days in France, we have an entirely new culture to get used to. But by bike, the difference is hard to discern, apart from the change in what words people use to express themselves.
We wait for the cycle path to clear, and following the lead of the river, disappear down the track into a new world and wonder how the second country of our trip will present itself to us.
Finding our feet again
The world unfurled as we hurled ourselves towards the coast; slowly toasting in the sun despite the breeze of dust and salty sea smells. It gave no respite from the heat, rattled us dry-roasted alongside the heavy traffic. It struck me how blue is always a cold colour; but today, in Spain, blue - cloudless sky - means one thing only: it's warm!
So far Spain has been very busy and hectic. Cycling from Irun to San Sebastian this morning and not really knowing anything other than our plan to "follow the coast", meant we joined heavy traffic, backtracked in suburbs and felt the suction of inner city commuting. Even the beaches are busy, it feels like the locals are making the most of the place before tourist season.
I have to say the coast around San Sebastian is absolutely gorgeous. The water is absolutely azure, and despite getting utterly lost (hilarious when all we have to do is literally follow the coast) for several hours, I'm glad we got to get lost in such a beautiful place. And it's so sunny and warm. We even got a rowsing cheer from a group of men as we cycled past, applauding the fact we are traveling by bike (I hope).
Our goal in Spain is the Camino de Santiago. Turns out our planned coastal route along northern Spain is very hilly and also possibly not as waymarked as in France, so we deliberated in the city for a while. We had lunch at a small bistro overlooking the harbour and just owned the fact we were going nowhere fast. The food was good enough to tempt us to stay longer, and we toyed with the idea of cycling east towards Pamplona in order to trace the easily followed EuroVelo 3 to the Camino de Santiago. We decided to stick with our original coastal plan and then hopefully follow the EuroVelo 3 back up north again.
When we did leave San Sebastian today, following the cliffs, it got hilly and it got hilly quick. A cyclist overtook us uphill at speed as we started to climb, and shouted to us in Spanish. He then switched to speaking English, and pointed ahead at a fork in the road - left went uphill at what I'd consider a fairly sharp gradient; right went upwards so steeply it was like you needed wings to get up it. He pointed to the left fork: "this is better for you, it is only 2km like this" and then rocketed up the right-hand fork.
I was pretty impressed at both his linguistics and also his ability to talk at all while pushing 20kmph up that incline. We took the left fork.
I said I enjoy cycling uphill - I do, and today was no exception. Which is good, because there was a lot of short, sharp climbs as well as the 2km "better" section. We both took the climbs in our stride and were rewarded with astonishing views over the bay. Presently we came to a sign for the Camino de Santiago. We jumped for joy and followed it; as turned off the main road, Spain promptly turned into the Yorkshire Dales. Slanted fields of grass with sheep or cows grazing in them; little farmsteads and the sound of blackbirds crooning the hills. A small herd of goats ran across the path in front of me and around me as I grunted uphill.
We came across a friendly walker from Holland who is hiking the Camino route. We paused and chatted awhile which took the sting out of our legs. Apparently it's a lot more illegal to wild camp in Spain, so more advisable to seek permission from landowners to camp in their garden or field.
You may wonder why today's photo is not of the beautiful coastal scenes we are surely seeing. Well, we were following the Santiago signs and feeling much better for deciding to take the coastal route after all, when the road abruptly ended and we were pointed down a wooded track. We soon had to dismount, and then we were pushing bikes up and down rocky inclines. I can see now why the trail is waymarked for hikers! Our Dutch friend presently overtook us as we persevered with our heavy bikes. We couldn't carry on like this if we wanted to get anywhere, but we would push on until the next paved road. One relief was seeing small dark blue flowers lining the track. But it was like trying to push a fully loaded bike down and up stairs that are made of rocks and keep sliding away from you.
The few hikers we passed didn't bat an eyelid at us, so I can only presume that there are a lot of silly English cycle tourers just like us who end up pushing their bikes on the trail.
We were relieved when we found a road, and even more relieved when there was a water tap alongside. As we filled up, a local pulls up alongside in a truck, and asks us in English where we are from. He tells us that just up the hill is a community-based restaurant, and we are welcome to put our tent up in the field there if we wish. This was even more of a relief, and again apparently an affirmation that we made the right choice in the route we are taking.
We crested the hill and gasped. We were on a level with the mountains, the view opening out here with a huge valley sweeping the ground many metres below us. Willow grabbed my arm and I looked - an enormous, enormous bird, soaring above us. From its shape I'd say it was a lammergeier, or bearded vulture.
We both realised the coastal route is a good choice to have made, and what a place to spend the night!
Inside the restaurant - The Yellow Deli, apparently there's one in Devon also - we are having tea, when our Dutch friend walks in. She recognised our bikes outside and will also be camping in the same field as we are tonight. We share an hour or two of conversation, she works as a tour guide and spends months of each year - over many years - hiking the great trails of the world. Iran is the friendliest place she has ever been, she says. I'm very grateful for the chance to talk and learn more about the world from someone who has been to so many places first hand, travelled so simply with just a tent and a rucksack.
I'm enjoying this trip, even if every morning I have to force myself not to worry about where we will be each evening, every morning I just think about getting on the bike and seeing what's there in front of me. Otherwise I'd get too scared of the uncertainty and burst. So it's slow and steady and being honest with myself and with Willow and with whoever we find on our way, and so far it's working out okay.
High points
A strange day, kind of like ordering from a menu in a foreign language - you have a vague idea of what you're going to get, some of it you have never encountered, and you feel obliged to finish it all off once you've ordered.
I discovered, last night, that our hosts at the Yellow Deli are apparently all members of the religious group The Twelve Tribes. I had decided to Google the restaurant to find out more about the place in Devon, and was brought to a string of pages on how The Twelve Tribes have been investigated by authorities multiple times for cult-like behaviour and child abuse. Needless to say this threw us a little bit, and it was a relief to hit the road this morning.
We coasted 4km halfway to the bottom of the mountain, and I discovered my front tyre (not the new one) had gone flat. I repaired it, and as soon as the wheel was back on, it was flat. I groaned; not this again. Having been here before, last week, I pumped it up as it was and we coasted the rest of the way downwards to Orio, where I replaced both the front tyre and the inner tube. Problem solved, but without the euphoria of last time. It struck me that last week's episode was so fantastic not because of the new tyre, but because of the humanity and friendship involved to fix it.
I'm feeling quite overwhelmed by Spain so far, and maybe this is simply the walls of my ignorance being broken apart. I am learning very quickly about the complexities surrounding Spain and the Basque Country, a divide I still don't fully understand. I am also learning that the north coast involves a lot of steep cycling.
Today's adventures took in more altitude on a bike than I've ever done before in a day, possibly in a single trip. The mountain roads are long, and give nothing away. The mountains themselves conceal what's yet to come, and so many times today I thought about how when you are going uphill, you can never see the highest point from where you are. It always looks like you can't climb any further, and then you round the bend and are surprised to see the road does indeed continue upwards.
We are eliciting cheers from many other cyclists as we puff stoically along, which is definitely nice to hear. The views are outstanding, they really are, but due to the steepness of the climbs and the mostly busy roads I haven't taken many photos. Besides, most of my concentration has been on watching Willow's back wheel to keep a safe distance uphill and focusing on making just one more pedal stroke, over and over.
Coming downwards is actually not the relaxing stint it usually is, either. After climbing for about 3 hours today we finally summitted the top of a peak and started going down the other side. It quickly became so steep that we had to dismount and walk down, pulling on the brakes. By the end of the long walk down, my hands were sore from braking, and my forearms ached from guiding the bike.
I'm still taking it all in. We may have perambulated gradually across the border but the difference between France and Spain is now very apparent. If France was a holiday, Spain promises to be hard work in terms of the cycling. Even finding a place to sleep is difficult - all the likely ground is set at about 50 degrees!
Pitched up for the night in the garden of a hostel, and while cooking dinner together we watched a barn owl fly across the field. I can hear a distant pair of tawny owls, behind the noise of a football game and traffic. I am ready to sleep and nervous for tomorrow, so instead I think of how proud I am of Willow. She doesn't always see it but she is brave and determined (she just keeps on going!) and I am so glad to be cycling behind her. She always finds room for a laugh and a joke, even while cycling uphill, even while it's hot and I'm ready to lie down.
More of the same tomorrow...
Bilbao
Sunset over Bilbao.
We reached the city after a sizzling spate of climbing and descending miles across the mountains. The progress is much more enjoyable on the quieter roads, I think we are re-learning how to cycle uphill. The climbs last for hours, followed by long sweeping descents on gentle hairpins. Overlooking layers of blue hills and broccoli treelines, the world is so still up here. We pass occasional squares, there may be a dog lying in the shade or a few people sharing a drink in the sun.
Rolling fields with all sorts of yellow flowers, goats graze wearing tinkling bells. Surprise waterfalls, plots of eucalyptus, bee hives (or wasp nests?) the size of mailboxes hanging like grotesque origami fruit here and there.
We are both feeling the strain of cycling so slowly upwards for hours on end. The scenery is fantastic, but it's heavy going mentally. Funny how used we are to the heavy luggage now; yesterday morning I went to the bank without my panniers and found the bike uncontrollably light; too responsive. When we first started cycling I nearly crashed because of the weight. Touring feels more like a lifestyle now than reality did. That being said, the half a mile or so of hike-a-bike yesterday on an old dirt track uphill wasn't easy.
We reached the city as the sun was burnishing itself into the horizon, descending seemingly at the same rate as ourselves, winding down the wide road into the high-rises. It was a beautiful place to be.
Securing accommodation was a bit tricky, but once again good fortune has stayed onboard with us. I'd never used Warm Showers before, but I'm really glad I did yesterday.
It's hard to plan ahead and judge exactly where we will be each night, especially in these mountains. I've slept out in cities before and it is not fun; once you arrive in a city it is best to find somewhere to sleep indoors. In the morning I'd tentatively reached out to some hosts living in Bilbao, via the Warm Showers app. The only positive response I received was free to host but not until after 23:00. A last minute arrangement, but once again an exercise in trusting your gut. The alternative was an eye-watering hotel bill (hostels all full) or risk getting caught camping near the city. It's fair to say we were both shattered, mentally and physically. Sitting in a city you've never been in before, on a Saturday night, when you have nowhere to be but nowhere you know is a strange experience. We sat on a wall in the Old Town of Bilbao and watched the people here who have their social lives centered into the restaurants and bars lining the same pavement that was taking us nowhere. We see people who may have cheered us on if we cycled past them during the day; now we are invisible, clunky wayfarers in dirty shorts and leaning on cumbersome bikes.
We bicker about the choices we made to get us here and doubt our journey and ourselves. The four hour wait gets smaller, surely and slowly. We eat a whole chocolate bar too quickly and both silently wonder what is making us want to cycle into an unknown city, far from home, at night, on a tenuous arrangement to sleep in a stranger's apartment only to wake up and delve even deeper into this unfamiliar country. This is only Spain! It's not even that far anyway.
Three and a half hours later we get up and wander through the late night revellers. We find the address of our host, and I buzz the flat. A Spanish voice rings out and then the line goes dead. Nothing happens. I double check the address and find we are at the wrong building, it's one door down from us. We move along, and I try again. This time the door opens...
You will never see the most beautiful moments
...we cram our bikes and panniers into the lift, and are welcomed inside a clean apartment, shown a bed on the sofa. It is close to midnight, we are all tired, hurried hello-goodnights, lights out, collapse and listen to the insistent city seven floors below.
This morning I awake nervously, having half-met the people who live here, people who are now making breakfast in the next room and laughing together. The morning streams onto the balcony by my feet. There are five of us in total - Willow and myself; and three girls from Germany. Two of them live here, the other is just visiting for the weekend. They've made space for us, put us up, last minute and made us welcome. We all huddle onto the open balcony overlooking this sunny Sunday in Bilbao. We can see the mountains and the other high-rises, the orange and blue rectangles I could never imagine living in but right now look beautiful in the city's haze. There is pancakes, coffee and fresh smoothie. We eat and talk and learn about each other and laugh. It is a beautiful, simple scene and I wonder how I felt so lost last night.
After breakfast we discover that one of our hosts plays the harp, and she takes it out - a full size harp - and sits down and plays it for us. The music is rhythmic, it pulses, it's warm-blooded and beautiful. There are many moving parts, and watching it happen in front of us right there and then is a privilege. I've never seen a harp played before and this is wonderful. I don't know how to stop smiling at it, I suddenly wish I could play it too and I'm grateful I'm there.
Willow goes to shower; I'm waiting for her in the living room and more music appears. There is a guitar being played on the balcony now, breakfast cleared away and the other flat-mate is out there with her visiting friend and she's playing and singing. It's lovely and reminds me of how I sit in the sun and play music for hours back home. I go out to watch, this is great. Soon the guitar is passed to me and I'm asked to play. After a month off I feel a bit clunky but then I relax and play some songs too. I'm sat there in the sun above the city with these new friends who are all listening and it could be anywhere really. Time is a big connector for people; so is music.
I can't tell you how beautiful it all is. I can't even show you; for this morning I took absolutely no photos of what happened. The moments were pure, spontaneous and even the light chimed in. I really admire the photographers who can step outside of themselves and make candid portraits, tell stories with people in through their photos. I just get caught up in being there and then when it's all over I remember too late. But it was beautiful and it happened and I was there, Willow was there, we were all there.
We cycle slowly out of the city and I marvel at the colours and bright white shapes of the bridges and the blue water. The city feels friendlier and it's not just the daylight. As we leave the suburbs a booted eagle flies overhead and is mobbed by seagulls. I've never seen one of those before!
I feel so fortunate to be seeing all these wonderful things, making new friends, growing, living - but sharply caught up with the knowledge that the most beautiful moments so far will be forever consigned to memory, not in pictures. How do you live so squarely in the moment and capture it so well? Can you balance both?
I mull this over for the next few hours. It's easy cycling, mostly gently downhill. We soon reach the beach and the coast again, and begin climbing just after Ontón. On our right is the sea, and we loop upwards and upwards on the ribbon of road. Rounding a bend, we start to descend - and the view! There is a promise of sunset in the sky, the mountains in front of us are layered green and gold, serrated with treetops, deep blue ocean to the right. Willow is thirty feet ahead of me, her silhouette outlined by the sun and mirrored by her shadow as she glides down the road, laid out below and to the sides - silver concertina snaking away, away. This is amazing, and I shout, it's amazing.
And again - you will never see that view. I'm too busy flying down, the sea and the unknown town and the huge humps of hill and the perfect road, to stop and take any photos - besides, I'd probably cause a crash. I see Willow taking it all in too, and I know that she is the only other person in the world who will ever see this view, ride this perfect road, with me. The photographer in me wishes to stop, dismount and calibrate the dots to show you as well, but I am too busy performing in the moment to do so.
There is so much to see, and if I could show the rest of you what I see, I would be so happy. But being ready with the camera, for that, involves just that - being ready, alert and expectant. And that would spoil all the surprises when the beautiful moments come stealing in along the balcony, come flying over around the mountain at sunset.
Santander
Somehow morale has been shifted. Maybe it was our lovely experiences in Bilbao, maybe it's the weather or the fact that the hills seem to be slackening off (or that we are getting used to them). But we are both feeling pretty good at the moment, though maybe a little tired.
We are back on the coast now - here we are, arriving at Santander on the little boat that crosses there from Pedreña.
The day's cycling to get here was our easiest so far since crossing the border, following long gentle climbs through picturesque hills lined with eucalyptus plantations. We are seeing a lot of palm trees and the occasional cactus. Black kites and the occasional eagle, buzzards and many many egrets - whole flocks of cattle egrets. There are a lot of smaller birds that I don't recognise. Lemon trees, well managed gardens with cabbages and lettuce growing - more people seem to grow their own vegetables both here and in France when compared to England. The gardens are open, low wire fences, so you can see what's going on - again different to the tall wooden barricades we separate ourselves with in England.
I really appreciate how every town in Spain seems to have several water fountains. We cycle past a garden and I see a smart mews with five smart peregrine falcons tethered, all sat out to weather with their baths. I am fondly reminded of my own time as a falconer and it's nice to see these birds in such good condition.
Santander feels calmer than Bilbao. We find a restaurant that is off the main track, full with people - even at 22:00 on a Monday night. The food is amazing and actually fairly inexpensive considering. This is our first time eating out like this in Spain and it feels good to have found a place not established to front the image of the city. After a few days of quiet, wooded mountain roads (albeit our stop in Bilbao) it's fun to just sit and people watch.
Good spirits
A grey day weatherwise but it feels like the world is rewarding our upswing in morale. Both yesterday and today featured our furthest distances cycled in Spain; we've covered around 60km today and the terrain is fairly easygoing.
We both enjoyed starting today with a delightful tortilla con queso y café americano, in a busy restaurant while we watched the local news and people. My Spanish is still appalling but I am trying.
For the first few hours we followed a very industrial route, warehouses and shopping precincts interspersed with factories. We wove along the coast; feeling the cool rain that threatened to worsen but only speckled the asphalt, reviving the colourful smells of agriculture buried in the hitherto dry earth.
Black kites are common now, and it is distracting to watch them hover just above the tops of the eucalyptus. We also often see walkers or fellow cycle tourers, probably following the Camino route too.
Later on the scenery became very green, fields full of dandelions or daisies rolling away to silent houses standing isolated amid the wet grasses. It reminds me of Cornwall a little. White sands here and there, small clean beaches, looking very homely underneath the grey skies.
We talk easily uphill and spread apart to enjoy the descents, often covering up to 4km with each freewheeling sweep of downhill. I pass the afternoon in waves of gratitude, and think about all the climbing I want to do, all the music to follow, and how good it feels to pass the miles so easily now. Being outside all day every day is good for the soul, and so is sharing the experience with someone so important and like-minded. We both note that the last few days we have hardly taken any photos between us, and we wonder why that is.
Inside in/outside out
The reflection of the strip lighting, flipped in the window from behind me, gives the illusion of a warm sun striking the palm fronds on the promenade, invitingly.
Today I discovered that chocolate caliente is thicker than chocolat chaud and not sweet at all. I pass the day not in miles covered but by sitting unperturbed and undisturbed, undercover outside a café watching the comers and goers to-ing and fro-ing from under the awning. The rain intermittently patters; there is a shop close by selling shark's teeth, knives and oilskins; I revel in feeling shattered and take it slow like a long morning.
My thoughts drift from here to home, I think of all the things I've put on hold - my friends at the wall getting stronger without me, my guitar unplayed, the passions I'm flouting - all for a bike ride, that won't be the biggest, furthest, or most original at all. Push past the easily pushed frontiers of foreign places and the world is a very similar one wherever you go. A string of towns going around and around, just the weather makes things slightly different. But it is raining today just like it rains everywhere else.
We walk around the headland, find a secret wooded trail - like a glen, Willow says - and a secluded gem of grassy bay, clear water showing the feeding crabs on the stones below, cormorants skirting the rising tide, sandpipers trilling and flying like bullets from under the bank. Two choughs chase and chatter, scattering my thoughts - I am noticing the window shutters always stay closed in this country; outside stays out and inside stays in.
Back to the café, the cloud is blacker, Willow's freckles show up, chocolate on honey. The wind knifes in, finely slices the water beyond the quay into quick little triangles; but inside the harbour all is glass, blue and sure, even the hut flag half mast.
I say nothing for half an hour and write instead. Letting the inside out.
Into Asturias
Roughly 60km of easy cycling, felt like a short day and I'm shocked it's nearly eight o'clock now.
Sandwiched between the sea, that flares up here and there, blooming from the rocky stems of the rivers; and the Picos de Europa, blocking our view to the rest of Spain, not letting us forget the threat of the mountains.
Houses particularly lovely and always unique, painted block blue or appearing freshly cut like giant papaya chunks. Lemon and orange trees replace the cherry trees I'm used to. We find charming inland beaches, white sanded and empty. The obligatory sounds of dogs barking at us as we pass their yards where they are always chained up.
We play games while we cycle - endless varieties of bingo; and a new game revolving around one person singing the lyrics to one song, to the tune of another and the other person trying to guess which artist wrote the tune.
It is April tomorrow, a new month and we chat about how used we are to this way of life - is it possible the initial excitement of the journey has worn off?
The rain we have dodged all day finally finds us and dumps a furious amount of water, punctured by hail. Huge birds circle over the horizons, huge enough to follow their wingbeats from a mile off. And it is genuinely hard to discern where the summits stop above us. The sky has marks scratched into it - I look again and realise they are snow clothed peaks; it is the sky marring the mountain and not the other way around. But they are one and the same from down here.
Gijón
Hugely tired so here are a few highlights from today:
- The stark morning light on the Picos de Europa, covered in snow, above the towns we cycled through this morning
- The surprise sunshine and views of the sea that both greeted us as we climbed the first hill of the day
- Managing to hide from the rain under a patio and staying dry all day
- Dunking muffins in thick chocolate caliente
- The gorgeous sweeping views of farmland, makes the hills all worth it
- Being given a bagful of fresh oranges picked from someone's garden. Nicest oranges I've ever had
- Playing with a friendly cat this morning
Grateful for sun
Our mantra for whenever we've struggled with anything on this trip so far, is "at least it's not raining".
We've been very fortunate with the weather so far - in total I think we've had maybe the equivalent of five full days of rain, since starting out cycling in England.
We climbed our way out of Gijón late this morning, the view to our left dominated by huge factory chimneys billowing out flames and thick white smoke. The luminous pollution clashed horribly with the dark sky and made it seem darker than it was. And then it rained. Suddenly steepening, the dirt track quickly became too wet to ride on safely, so we dismounted and shuffled on up into the wet woods.
A break in the clouds allowed us to enjoy the trail through the gum trees when it levelled, the sunshine thinly and cleanly illuminating the surrounds in very yellow light. We followed the uneven track, impressed by the quiet. The woods peeled back and we passed a pretty red and black timber house with sweetcorn hanging in dusky bunches from its eaves.
The rain picked up again, heavily and in no time we were soaked. The tree cover was now behind us, and the next few miles blurred like a foggy windscreen as the rain set in. Water in the air, and hail, puddles on the floor, cold hands and reflexive gasps. Nothing to do but grit your teeth and plug on. I turn my head every now and then to check on Willow behind me - there she is, hunched over like I am, exposed and completely caught up in it too. I sink my head into my neck and stay put; even though I'm already soaked I choose to delude myself that there is no water running down my collar.
We find a small bridge and take shelter, let's just get our hands warm again. We will be wet and cold again soon but let's just get some feeling back again for now.
The sun does come back eventually - it always does - and it feels beautiful. The wind whips up but it's alright because we are in the sun and soon dry again. I always love to see the light fresh after heavy rain.
The ups are worth it for the downs
A quiet day, just the two of us and one long road that took our breath away again and again.
We started a little late; my brake pads needed replacing and adjusting. I felt frustrated at all the moving parts, the need to take time out and re-calibrate my bike - I just wanted to get moving, see places without getting to know them, just fly on by, take it all in from my saddle on the right hand side of the road, fleeting smells and sounds that are immediately replaced with something else new and exciting.
The countryside is verdant green, viaducts and powerlines splicing the hills. It reminds me of Lancashire; the dark green of constantly wet life, the rise and fall of slopes that never become unremarkable even after a morning's slog up and down on repeat. The sheepy smell of open yards, mules grazing, cafés that look like they've been closed forever but there's a couple half empty bottles bright and shiny on the dusty windowsills.
There are rivers that greet us at the floor of each valley, streams that bubble brown and smooth the rocks until they are cream-coloured.
We round a bend and find ourselves in a huge bowl; the road circling the valley in a wide arc. We feel tiny. Surrounded by eucalyptus, it feels like we are in the jungle. Below are gatherings of houses, little squares, each one singularly beautiful, cracked and weathered, their painted coats dull in the cloud but surely bright in the sun that obviously shines here on other days.
Cattle and goats, also different colours, mooch around the thick grass, the bells on their necks tinkling wherever we find them.
The road is empty, it rises, and falls, for miles, slowly. We overtake each other, see the sea now and then, stop for chocolate. I'm glad we replaced my brake pads, and let my legs relax as we pick up speed. It is beautiful here. A lot of the homes have outbuildings on stilts, they look like little tree-houses. I stop to take a photo and get chased away by a collie.
Butter and bread tastes so good at the top of the hill, simple, soft and open-air. The sun doesn't really come out today but it's not a problem. Buzzards and ravens call close by, close enough to see the colours on their claws. Tomorrow may be our last full day on the coast. Today was definitely a good one.
Galicia
Final day on the coast in a while. Shorts and shirt all day. No clouds, a wind that is cold if against you and helpful if behind you. We covered about 30km very quickly before lunch, the road gently undulating without exerting our legs, flat fields on all sides. The lack of trees suddenly made the world feel very big and open. Far off to the left, layers of blue mountains looking like huge static waves. On the right, the real thing - even bluer, flat and hazey. Sometimes the roadsides came close together, caving us in with slants of slate and yellow gorse. At other times, when it is just us and sky, detached houses break the emptiness. Pink rose bushes stand alone too, in their gardens; clustered trees dripping fruit, or wearing blossom like a crema, white and delicate, petals skimmed off by the wind. Even on bare trees you can see the mark of the breeze; boughs and trunks bent double from the invisible onslaught of onshore weather.
We see a pair of kestrels - you can tell the male from his blue-grey nape - and one of them dives, tussles in the rustling grass, and is away again with something in its talons.
The crossing to Ribadeo later on is grand. There is a footpath on the side of the motorway; we walk this over the bridge, many metres above the calm estuary. The wind and tide far far below make me feel like the world is spinning, I can see beneath my feet the minarets of waves pulling up white froth and I get giddy. Yellow sands and orange rocks, the omnipresent mountains far off and getting closer is our last coastal town for a while. It has been an easy day but still we've covered a lot of ground.
We take a scenic route, to take in the last of the coast before it departs, and wind through narrow alleys. Curling around the cliffs, the footpath breaks the wind and in the sun it is calmly warm. Out in the open my hairs stand on end and I pedal faster to warm up. So many of the tiny bays are pristine and abandoned. It is a theme of this journey that we really aren't seeing many people. Is it the recent pandemic, is it the off-season, is it just how it is here? I don't know and I kind of enjoy not knowing; visiting in harmless ignorance and just seeing what is there in front of me.
Breath taking
Breaking away from the coastal path at last has now brought us to the belt of mountains that today we hoped to traverse and cross.
These peaks were not like the spikes I always picture when I hear the phrase "mountain range"; instead dealt out untidily but perfectly as slumps, humps and scooped out valleys. As the crow flies not far to go, but we are not crows, so - over 1000m of uphill climbing awaited us in the form of 8 full hours of winding switchbacks and criss-crossing dirt tracks up and down. There was no intermediate at all, no flat ground today. We gently climbed from the get go, reaching the top of the first hill before the sun did. Dew dazzled the ground, shining the clear greens to bright, damp silver-pink in the low light. We stopped, beyond the ramps of grass more hills stood. The earth seemingly bent double and so tall, each mound stretching to heaven and each placed to give the others space, so we could see the shapes of every mountain as an independent layer of blue.
The route turned away from the road and so did we; winding through quiet eucalyptus and gorse - the gorse is everywhere and impenetrable - with houses and hedges here and there. Old wooden planks, cobwebby bricks, slate, shingles; these houses are made of all kinds of things.
It's hard to pinpoint landmarks today. We did a lot of hill climbing, pushed our bikes up 300m of dirt track, fixed a puncture, surprised some goats that crossed the road in front of us, and saw a flock of around 20 magpies. I was hungry a lot. It was maybe the most demanding day of cycling I've ever had.
These were hills you had to lean back to see the tops of. You don't think about getting to the top, because you can't. You only think about staying on the bike and about keeping the bike moving. Once you've stopped pedalling, you won't be able to start again and you'll have to push, which is harder. But really, you're thinking about keeping the bike moving because otherwise you'll think about how much more you have to do to get to the top. I looked ahead, saw the pointlessly steep curve of tarmac rear up and away; the sheep to one side who don't care either way; and bent my head back down again. I breathed slowly, deliberately, trying to offset the rhythm of my pathetically pistoning legs. Heaved the cool air in, just focusing on breathing as an act, as my one job to do while I'm pedalling. I pass two women and silently curse them when they do not acknowledge me, encourage me. The road keeps on turning and climbing, with visibly long stretches between each bend. I am very aware of the tops of my legs, they feel like sponges. There is sweat on my lip and I wish more than anything to flick it off, but I must keep both hands on the handlebars so I don't lose my rhythm. I sneak a glance behind me to check for Willow - there she is, of course she is, seemingly tiny below me, pedalling steadily too - I make sure she looks my way while I'm looking so she knows I am looking out for her.
I see what could be the summit - who am I kidding, of course it is, I spied it from way back down there, recognise this house to my left - and besides, the light hits differently up here; beyond that tree there is simply sky. It's not over yet, not over till I've gone past the highest point - but then it'll be a brief and easy slide down to the next climb, so it really won't be over until it well and truly is over. Just keep turning the pedals.
I start to see a gradual peep of the next valley, it looks like all the others have done except more trees and less houses. Maybe I'm just higher up at the moment, but I really don't care at this point. It's an ecstasy of effort, exercised lungs and legs together propel me in a slow burst over the top of the mountain. I freewheel ten feet and then gingerly dismount, there is no rushing this moment, I didn't pedal up here like that just to get off quickly. I stand and let my body enjoy standing, can't tell if it's relief or complaint from my legs, I don't look too hard either; unclip my helmet gracefully and lean the bike up and sit down. Wipe that damn drop of sweat from my lip and get the camera out and wait for Willow.
And then there she is, of course she is, happily lifesize and pedalling steadily too. She freewheels ten feet and gingerly dismounts and we sit on top of the world together, sucking in the air up there, heartbeats going mad.
Warm and wet
We started today cycling into rain, misty, invisible rain, and it rained for most of the day. For some reason this was absolutely no bother at all - at first the wind blew the water into our faces, but then we got used to it and by the afternoon it was a lovely experience. Warm rain is much better than cold rain.
Another abiding feature of today was the amount of walking we did, and the amount of off-road tracks. The mountains being (mostly) behind us now means we can more easily tackle the way-marked hiking trail to the Santiago on our bikes. It's been a day of traversing farm yards; eyeing up their quirky, DIY outbuildings and monstrously big guard dogs, features symptomatic of the rural Spain we are seeing. It's been a day of woodland, pine trees swapping places with the eucalyptus, streams segmenting the gravel tracks; pretty bridges leading us over smooth green rivers.
We ate lunch under a church and opposite two stork's nests situated on chimney pots. I was initially shocked to see the huge birds clattering overhead and displaying on their awesome nests, but by the end of the afternoon we had come across quite a few of these magnificent birds foraging for food in the fields as we rode. Yellow flowers and reindeer moss are the flora of the day for me. I've been seeing house martins a lot, and marvelling at the way they tumble upwards and down in the air, flying an invisible trapeze within centimetres of buildings. They pull their wings in, shooting themselves in a circular arabesque that repeats itself over and over. It's like they are pulling tricks on a half pipe but with their wings, and the penalty for error is fatal collision with a chimney. I could watch them for hours. I thought they were early this year until I remembered we are no longer in England.
When the sun did come out it was lovely and warming, the wind persisting and drying our wet clothes as we pushed on.
We are both still very tired from yesterday's slog and it was great to enjoy a day of easy terrain. Despite the density of undeveloped tracks today, it's been one of the easiest days yet in Spain. That said, we are still tired. Not sure what the weather will bring tomorrow. Happy and sleepy.
Wolf country
A stellar day of real spring weather, and awesome cycling. I feel that my photos are fairly repetitive. Nonetheless, I also feel that this photo more or less sums up today - beautiful, natural scenery and dirt tracks, frequently stopping to take it all in.
From what I am seeing, Galicia is just gorgeous. A conversation with some locals yesterday taught me that there are wolves right in the forests we are cycling through! This is exciting and I was a little disappointed that we didn't see any today. Our morning began misty but soon bloomed to blue sky, and we followed the Camino signs into a rugged wonderland of gorse, huge heather bushes and pine trees. Huge boulders, still pools teeming with green plants, and sandy soil. Sometimes we were cycling across the boulders, which was surreal. We could clearly hear cuckoos calling to each other across the landscape.
The Spanish seem to have picturesque rural farm living down to a fine art. Everywhere we go at the moment we pass different houses and yards. They all seem to feature brightly coloured, Smart Car sized tractors; dozy, Smart Car sized mastiffs; hens of all different shapes and sizes; ramshackle sheds and outbuildings, apparently held together by string or a few nails. There are well loved, well tended vegetable patches; old men carefully spraying or pruning rose bushes. These slices of rural life are always so charismatic, characterful. The buttery, meaty smell of chicken coops has pervaded all my clothes and hair. We crossed through a yard with eight dogs all spread out, lazing and eyeing us as we tiptoed through them. An alsatian and several mastiffs were the biggest and the only breeds I recognised. I felt very nervous as we walked around them.
Most of the cycling today has felt either flat or gently downhill, and very rarely on developed roads. We spent a couple of hours bouncing down along a rutted track, soft with deep mud and puddles. Big rocks, treeroots and cow's hoofprints were the obstacles to overcome, and the ground sloped downwards pretty steeply. This was huge fun and a complete change from anything else in Spain so far.
Towards the end of the day the sun lengthened and softened, backlighting the new leaves on the trees all around us. It was just beautiful. We were frequently overtaken by horses and their riders, the latter often without helmets.
Following the forest and sparse habitation has made me feel very happy. We are nearing the end of the Camino route, and I realised today that this is contributing to my good mood. Cycling in Spain feels much more demanding than cycling in France. I have a theory that this is because our French itinerary was broken down into around six arbitrary stages - whereas the entirety of our Spanish route has been solely following the Northern Route of the Camino. It's always felt like one big chunk to go at, and even though we will still be in Spain for another few weeks, closing the Camino's chapter is creating a revitalising fresh start, at least mentally.
¡Buen Camino!
You know what felt really good today?
Overtaking a group of mountain bikers, while cycling uphill on dirt track. One of them was even pushing his bike!
Maybe I am a little competitive after all.
So we made it to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostella today, having followed the Northern Route of the Camino de Santiago. I'm proud of Willow; making this route one way or another has been a bucket list thing for her and she's made it happen!
The last 30km to the cathedral were pretty lovely. More gentle hills and a lot of off-roading in perfect sun. I am enjoying how familiar the smell of eucalyptus has become. The Northern Route joined up with the Camino Francés and we were suddenly cycling alongside many pilgrims on foot; it was all huge rucksacks, poles and selfie-sticks. It made me appreciate the option of speed on the bikes and the solitude that cycling provides.
Arriving at the cathedral itself was classically anti-climactic. The sun was out so I found a bench and sun-bathed for a few hours. It feels good to have made it to the landmark but I don't otherwise have an attachment to the place. We took turns to explore the inside; it's a pretty spectacular building. I couldn't help but think of what's next. I'm excited by the prospect of new places and a new leg on the journey.
Above all I'm really proud of Willow. When we crossed into Spain and realised how mountainous the cycling would be, we very nearly diverted our route to miss the hills. But Willow wanted to stick to the plan and we did and we are here now. Reaching the cathedral isn't really the point; picking out a route, a challenging route, a route you've always wanted to do - and then rising to the challenges and getting it done, come what may, that's the point of it all. The cathedral was just a spot on the map to help you line up all the other dots on the way.
And with that in mind, we've got the rest of the map to explore...
What's the point?
I had a moment today where I really wanted to just pack it all in. I was cycling up yet another long hill, my quads burning, my body wet from the enticing mix of sweat and recent rain. At the top of the hill there would probably be another hill, and another and another. It will rain again later on, and soon I'll run out of food, and then I'll have to carefully spend my money on more food to energise me enough to cycle up yet more hills and repeat the pattern. I've cycled the supposedly hardest variation of the Camino de Santiago, I've been there now, surely I can just fast-track through all this?
I thought about this for a while. When I realised that I couldn't come up with a better alternative to what I was currently doing, I shut up the voice in my head and focused on being where I was instead; since that was the only option I have and also the only place I actually am. I'd reached the top of the hill by this point, and was quickly distracted by a dead grass snake on the floor.
We are now following the signs for the EuroVelo 3, but following the signs in reverse. The EuroVelo 3 is designed to finish up at the cathedral in Santiago, after skirting a line from the Pyrenees, to Pamplona and Léon. It's hopefully going to serve us well as a guide for our onward journey, and it's fun at crossroads trying to work out which road the backwards signs point to. Today, in a way, was monotonous. Quiet roads, hills, plantations of eucalyptus. Rape fields, buzzards, rural hamlets. We covered approximately 60km, I'd believe you if you told me it was only 30. It's hard to know when you're up and down and winding around and around.
The lingering rain brought out a rainbow and fresh, bright, hot sunlight in the late afternoon. Dazzlingly wet and white on the road stripes.
I am not one of those people
I sit in my tent and feel very small. Just over one month ago we set off from our van to explore Europe by bike. Just over one month.
When we decided to make this trip happen; when we planned it, packed for it; set off on it - I don't think there is any point that I could have given you a concrete reason for why we are doing this. Sure, I've wanted to do something like this - go on a big-ish bike ride - for a long time, but I don't know why. Anyway, 'why' is not really the point.
We are here now, camped in a stranger's garden in rural Galicia. To get here, we cycled all day (and all day before that, etc.), meandering along beautiful steep roads, past rivers and green valleys. I got a puncture just before sunset, and after we fixed it, an elderly woman came over and spoke to us non-stop, insistently, pressingly, in a language I do not understand. Despite repeated shrugs from ourselves, she kept talking and pointing. Pointing to us, to the road, to her mouth, to the road, to the bikes. She kept talking and I wished I could understand, wished I could speak Spanish like I can French, wish she'd stop talking so quickly.
I can't even remember how it happened, but maybe an hour later we are camped in her front garden. I will never know what she was saying to us, it certainly wasn't a prolonged invitation to set up our tent. I can hear her huge mastiff stirring in the yard, and there's a donkey nearby who brayed once into the night and made me jump out my skin while I was cooking dinner.
So we are here now. And I feel very small. There are people who have gone before me and others going now, on longer rides, bigger rides, lonelier rides. People who have more discipline with their budgets and more impressive stories. People who can tell you why they went on a big bike ride, people who can give you a reason so good you want to go on one yourself.
All I know now is that I am not one of those people. Camping in the quiet, velvet night, my head is finally clear after a loud day on the road. So clear that it feels very empty. I feel tears coming on and I wish I could rationalise it, rationalise this self-imposed journey to nowhere in particular.
It's not even a big deal. I'm not a big deal, I'm just camping in somebody's garden. If I wanted to I could get a flight out of here and hit the undo button on forty-odd days worth of cycling in a couple of hours.
But I don't want to do that. It's not the biggest journey, it's not an original journey, I'm not doing anything special. But I am doing something. In just over one month, we've seen so much. I write those words lamely, let the empty space do the talking. We've seen so much. I think about how much we've seen, in just over one month, and I feel more tears. I am overwhelmed by how much we've seen, cycling simply a relatively short distance each day, for just over one month. And then I think about how much we will see - tomorrow, the next day, the next week, the next month - and I am overwhelmed even more.
So I sit in my tent at the top of this hill and allow it all to happen; exhaust myself with the enormity of taking it all in - let alone articulating it all - and fall asleep to let my dreaming mind soothe my reckless thoughts into shape.
Perception
I read somewhere once that your perception of gradient and distance is skewed because your brain can't accurately process what your eyes are seeing. As a result of this effect, slopes appear steeper than they actually are when viewed from below. I always think of this when I cycle uphill.
Today was hard work, easily the most uphill cycling I've done in a single day. When comparing our start and finish on the map, we only moved around 30km in a straight line. What the map does not show however, is the added distance that hills bring to the table.
It's amazing what a difference a change in terrain can have. For all the climbing, over 1300m of vert today, it wasn't an assault on my body in the same way as previous days have been. I attribute this to the lack of dirt tracks. These roads are well paved, and also quiet.
We are hearing cuckoos more or less constantly now. It is beautiful and I am still yet to see one in my lifetime. Storks forage in roadside fields, kites hover low over the landscape. The rooks call strangely, noticeably more melodic than the birds I'm used to. We climb all day, sometimes we enjoy brief downhills. I surprise some farm dogs and they chase me down the road for a hundred metres or so. While we stop and eat lunch, we unpack the tent and air it out on some bushes.
The land here is pastoral, green and though quiet it is never still. Life oozes vibrantly from the keen buds, shimmers on the flowers, rustles underneath the even mantle of fallen leaves, where the sunlight flatters the dirt like a stage lantern. Water pulses across its courses, hypnotic, cool and curling around the soft rocks like ferns unwrapping in the spring. Two horses stand in the shallows under an old mill, they could have grown there, beech-brown, peaceful, tree-trunk quiet.
We push on gradually, the skill to making headway is to take time and acknowledge the views, acknowledge the effort involved in the journey. We find a roadside pool, fed from a spring, and I dunk my head into it. It is gaspingly cold. The freshwater sluices down my face when I stand up, I do not wipe it away. The road is not too steep, but rises away in concertina fashion, unfolding with pink clouds of heather and yellow gorse. There are no people at all. Due to our height, and the irregularities of the enormous hills, we can see whole fields of sunlight, the shadows of clouds, different valleys each with a different level of shade. The sky and the earth, up here they are two patchwork entities sliding across each other. Clouds of rock and clouds of weather.
The summit comes after a dip. We drop down 200m and climb a sharp 300m. The road was never engineered for swift cycling and the final push is stop-start, head-down, bent-double. In the moment, it is only effort. It is only before and after the climbing that you consider the challenge as a challenge. It is a waste of time and morale to wonder and worry about a hard day's cycling uphill. Away from the steep roads you can build it up to be anything, knock yourself down to be anything but. It gets worse in your head and when you finally arrive; when the going really gets hard, you are simply immersed in the frame by frame play of the game. Living second by second is the only way. You climb a thousand metre-high mountains in quick succession, not a single kilometre all at once. The mountain is only visible as such when you're far away, close up it is a beautiful array of grass, rocks, flowers, lizards...the sound of a buzzard taking flight, the exhale of a stream. Close up it is a million delights piled on top of each other, and today I got to work my way through them.
At the top I collapsed. It is bliss, a huge heap of earth pulled together and two tiny humans above it all of their own volition. The valleys in front of us are yellow, blue and green. Two birch trees break the mold of the shaded slope and stand out as veins of silver. Because I work so hard to breath cleanly now, breathing is all I do. I look too, can't look enough. We are above the buzzards, beneath the moon.
Several hours later the sun seems to pull all the pink from the heather as the bushes grow blue with night. The sky is pastel, flushed fuscia; young night makes the sky visibly vaster than all the world. No longer a bystander, the heavens take centre stage in a play of shapes and colour. A cloud battles in slow motion with a distant peak, swirling static, immovable earth.
As I remember it
If I could have recommended one day in Spain to you out of all the days we've had so far, it would be today by a long way. Why? Simply because it had it all, all the ingredients of our experience of Spain filling the hours between sunrise and sunset. The only thing missing was the coast.
We rose before sunrise, I made a point of getting up beforehand because we were facing east on the top of a mountain. Two mastiffs were awake too, and we had the pleasure of watching them play together in the yellowing light, the dawn chorus sounding out an aural replica of the spreading sun. We sat for an hour or so, the dogs getting bolder and eventually coming over to be petted. The light changed from sleepy purple-grey to orange to white-gold, everything else turning clearer and warmer as the day began over 1000m above sea level. To the west there was a cloud inversion below us, a stirring bowl of white and red. And we could see the distant heather, the purple colour of the flowers reacting fiercely to the breaking dawn.
After breakfast we began our descent, not steep at all but manageably shallow, smooth and gently curving side to side across the mountains. Punctuated with several sharp ascents, we dropped around 700m in total. All around the smell of pines, and in the shady patches, aromas I will always associate with summer. Young flowers like little fruits; fresh grass as thick as cream pooling around the tree tangled roots. A million shades of green, the bells and blues of the stream. If we look beyond all this, the mountains and plains stretch around us and below us, rippled like a duvet being shaken out to air in the sun. The view is impossibly vast, the horizons here are bigger than all others. We are still above it all and it is amazing to know we cycled to where we are.
We leave Galicia and enter Castilla y León, and my first impressions of the change are descending from the treeline into a world of slate gorges, the orange walls rising up either side of us and isolating us as we speed downward. Twists and turns are impossible to predict but delightfully wide and slow.
Again, we see hardly anyone. Passing through a slanted village, I spy a man sat in a doorway working at an axe block. Of course I pull over and go to see what's happening. He's all eyes and hair; two flints of blue sparking out from within his mane of curly silver. He wears a faded leather sombrero and is shaping axe handles with hands that are tools themselves; grizzled and dirty, not unclean, but constantly in use. An acrid cigar perches on his bottom lip, its smoke twirling thickly around his head. He shows me his workshop/house, and it is exactly as it should have been - dark, oaken, handmade. There are animal skulls over the unlit fireplace. I half expect it all to be made of gingerbread.
We continue descending, following the thread of the gorges through tiny villages. Houses all packed together but all different, like they were made at once but by many people, who all had a house each to build. Wooden balconies and sagging eaves, yellow lime, intricate doorways and shutters. There is no geometry, the bric-a-brac buildings bulging at the corners and around the twists of the road. Chicken coops, olive trees, piles of tiles and firewood stacks.
I wish I had all the time in the world, to see this place in an endless spring over and over again.
Reaching Villafranca, we cross the bridge over the river. It's busier here and a beautiful town, a small castle nestled in between the homes and shops that slope away from its turrets. And above all this, the mountains rear, a blue wedge under the sky that is getting bigger and bigger the closer we get.
A dirt track leads us out of Villafranca, and the landscape completely changes. Miles of vineyards, black cornrows spiralling away along the red, red earth. This is the Spain I remember, dusty plains cupped in the basins created by mountains. It is searingly hot and I am glad we are still descending. I finish a roll of colour film with a photo of land and sky, mostly sky, and switch to black and white. The contrast between the red soil and deep open sky above us is sudden and unexpected. We pass through olive groves, the floor shimmering with dappled shade and the movement of the huge ants that patrol it.
After a brief climb, we leave the vineyards behind and find ourselves above an urban landscape again. We descend once more, a motorway to our right. Beyond the bridge are shops, petrol stations, apartment blocks, all humming with human activity. The evening sun is behind us and it casts our shadows long and clean-cut across the wave of trail on this dusty edgeland. And for a brief moment, I see the two of us silhouetted just as we are - two kids gusting along on their bicycles and nothing else, two kids who packed it all in for a short while to live simply, move fast and light, see what there is to see without any pretence or hiding from any of it, and it's just the two of us together out here with so much space all around us both. For a brief moment I see how empty the space is, how thin the shadows look, and then I look behind and see the backlit mountains we've just rolled down. Memories surface and paint the gaps behind me, and I turn back to see our silhouettes disappear into the wickering sunlight at the speed of a freewheeling bicycle.
The most beautiful day
The further we cycle, the more we see, the harder it becomes to write about it afterwards. There is so much colour and beauty and change, drama, mundanity, sheer amount and sheer variety. All I can say for sure is, going on a bike ride like this will change your life and you'll get the full spectrum of experiences that go along with it. Slow burning, impactful change.
Starting out slow and low, sauntering through the tight alleys of Camponaraya, the low sun slanting and colouring the bare orange sides of the cafés and house blocks, warming the streets as it all came to life. The day would in time sizzle and shimmer in murmurous heat, but coasting along past quiet vineyards and gardens felt cool and easy. We dropped down off the asphalt and followed a gravel track alongside a lush river. The sweet green leaves played in the breeze on their branches beside us. This waterside trail took us shortly to a huge arched bridge, and we crossed over. Celebrations for Semana Santa are in full swing and above the river it is all noise and people. We dismount and pick our way past a church, through the robed crowds of the ceremony.
Descending down yellow-brick alleyways underneath featureless turquoise sky, a few cyclists see us and tell us that we are going the wrong way for the Camino de Santiago. We reply and say that we know - we aren't going to Santiago, we are going to France. We are often told now that we are going the wrong way - it amuses me to think that everyone assumes the only reason for travel here is to follow the ancient pilgrimage route. A walker reacted with surprise that you'd even be able to follow the Camino route backwards. It gives me wry delight to tell people we are not lost and forging a separate path to those heading West.
At the base of today's climbing the birds start to harness the oncoming heat and we count three storks, three kites and who knows how many eagles; steadily climbing from eye level to minute specks, circling and soaring upwards on thermal currents rising from the warming tarmac.
I wish I could spread wings and fly like they do. The course of the day sees us rise to over 1500m above sea level, another day of +1300m vertical travel. We take an early lunch overlooking the idyllic river and bridge at Molinaseca, the people coming and going and not a soul noticing the kestrel's nest that is perched on a high ledge on the church. We see, and we see three young and their parents calling and the former take their first early flights circling the parapets.
After lunch the climbing is gradual and lenient. We are soon above the town and surrounded by ravines of stone and thorny trees. Gently the gorge sweeps us around on tight bends and low gradients, it is placid and still. There is little traffic, and when the views open out we see vast amounts, the V-shape of the green slopes spreading out and it feels like we are cruising over a jungle.
We keep climbing, and keep climbing. Sometimes it is steeper, always getting hotter. In a few hours the views are literally breathtaking, good excuses to stop and look. Hazey blue and miles and miles of unbroken view. There is snow on some distant peaks. Cycling like this becomes attritional, but never ugly. Here and there we pass through steep, cobbled hamlets, the one road barely wide enough for passing traffic. The dogs no longer bark; it is too hot to care. The trees break away and my limbs feel soapy with sweat. I have to pause every fifty metres or so, it is so stiflingly hot.
I may be faster uphill than Willow but she possesses some hidden trait that is not something easily learnt. Watch her cycle up a steep slope and you will see pure spirit and pure graft. She simply doesn't stop turning the pedals. At several points I had to stop, had to rest, had to recuperate even for a brief minute - but Willow is indomitable and unrelenting. She churns her way up steadily, deliberately. There is no theatrics, no bravado, just the task at hand and no reason not to finish it in proper style. And at the top, always energy left for a breezy "whoo!" and punch the air. And then on.
We pass the 1500m mark after about four hours, and honestly the views are too good. You'll have to go there, see it for yourself and cycle up there to earn the maximum enjoyment of seeing.
But it gets better - it is all downhill from here.
15km passes in less than an hour, we swoop and glide and fly at last.
Breaking the summit and rounding that bend is up there with the best experiences of my entire life. For days, mountains have punctuated our every view. Up there, coming around the trees, there is a gap in the hedge and the plains are laid bare for miles and miles and miles in front of us. It is so massively open, we are so far above it, it feels like we are looking down through space. And it is all ours for the taking. I am reminded of Kerouac: "...What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies..."
And we do, we lean forward and fly down, doing in an hour what has sometimes taken a day. Nothing else compares to that feeling of pushing on through the mountains and launching off on a push-bike with all your things and swooping along, over 50kmph, trees and pylons whipping by, and knowing you did it all to get there.
At the bottom the world is quiet and deliciously flat. Red earth and olive trees, everywhere the hum of crickets. It is a beautiful sound and redolent of summer evenings. The atmosphere slowly turns lilac, the heat refuses to fade. The moon will be full tomorrow, and today it is wide and bright white, rising fast and lambent. A black wheatear - such a beautiful bird - sits framed in its lantern light atop a radio aerial and sings to the night, a master of his music. Every so often he flutters and hovers in a tight circle around his perch. A starling pipes up on a wire and it feels like they duet together. Willow is sun-browned and beautiful, perfectly at peace watching the wheatear warble. The crickets churr, the flat plains breathe out a herby smell that is intoxicating. I wish that this moment would go on forever and ever, but am equally grateful that this life is a series of changing events that slide over one another without stopping. The wheatear performs a final pirouette and disappears into a shadow under the eaves.
Red plains
Today's riding felt like a proper jolly. The morning was miles of sun and off road riding on red soil, through olive groves and open fields. Villages charming with ochre timbers on turmeric walls, ornate fountains, sleepy balconies and cobbled paving. And all mostly flat!
Just enjoying the change of scenery here in Spain. Riding easily and not sweating in the sun. We ate lunch under a stork's nest and watched a family of booted eagles circle and dive over the marshes. Storks seem to get along well with each other; we frequently see two or three separate nests all sharing space on a single rooftop. Bird watching is a hobby happily shared by the two of us, and it's fun to compare notes and learn about these new species together.
After lunch we followed the straightest, flattest road I've ever ridden, across farmland. Pretty cirl buntings and black redstarts scattered like petals in our path. On either side of the road water flowed in trenches; you could hear the croaking and honking of amorous frogs. Kites enjoyed the heat rising from the road; goldfinches tinkled brightly from blossomy boughs of the sparse trees. The asphalt soon gave way to more dirt track, still flat and we bounced along. Despite the thin vegetation, cuckoos call in abundance. The Picos de Europa shimmer in the distance with snow cloaking the topmost peaks.
But here it is all haze and heat and dry earth.
We enter León and dismount to navigate its streets. The Semana Santa celebrations hold us up as parades of locals crowd in costume, carry idols of Christ and bang drums. Beyond the rowdy square more people jostle and drink. We make slower progress in the city but this is nice, it is a good looking place.
One of my new delights now is relaxing at sunset and watching it play out wherever we are. You don't have to watch the sun go down to enjoy it. The way the light transforms even empty courtyards is enthralling. Sunken streets become enrobed in gold leaf if the light hits them the right way. And of course, the birds stay singing. Which is always my favourite.
Felices Pascuas
What do you do when the roads are flat and the sun is out? You put the miles in, of course!
A local told us the other day that many hikers walking to Santiago skip out this section of Spain, because it is famously "flat and featureless". Perhaps the people who say that have no eye for living things. There may be no mountains or forests, but in the miles of open space today I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing and hearing all the different birds and insects that make their homes here. The flowers too are varied and abundant, and the travelling is easy - we made 110km since leaving León which makes today our biggest distance day of the trip so far.
There are many small birds and most of them I do not recognise. Willow pointed out several yellow wagtails, which is the first time we've seen this bird. I spotted a crested lark, more cirl buntings, could hear reed warblers, and I also saw a dark coloured small bird that may have been a reed bunting or a stonechat. But I'm not sure. My knowledge of these smaller birds is not what it could be, but I enjoy the learning process and also enjoy seeing these creatures for possibly the first time.
Another 'lifer', as they say in birding circles; referring to a bird you see for the first time in your life - was a honey buzzard. Sudden and slate-coloured, it lurched from the long grass by the path as we stopped for a break. I also saw the honey buzzard's common cousin circling above the road, aptly over a sign for a town called "Carrión".
Early on in the day the lonely road was invaded by a huge flock of sheep, flanked and herded by several men and their dogs. Their leisurely procession filled both empty lanes and spilled onto the footpaths either side, so we had no choice but to stop and watch.
It was fun to fly along, for the most part following the same road all day. The access to all this space makes you see the little details. Having said that, I enjoyed the contrasting yellow swathes of rape fields set against the distant blue mountains, huge and everywhere beyond the dusty cycle lanes. Parades of ants criss-crossed their own mountains along the gritty trails.
In fact, for me, the only feature we saw less of today - was people. And I'm not complaining at all about that.
Fields all day
The distance we made yesterday meant that we have now just passed through the most southerly point of the trip; from now on we are gradually heading north again. For the next few days however, it's mostly east.
A gravelly canal path led us into the flat fields. A fierce headwind masked the heat of the sun, and lingered all day, blowing our conversations away and slowing our pace. I hate to distill the scenery down but it is easy to: hours of monochromatic green crop fields and a hazey sky, cloudless but not clear; thick blue, translucent, like gauze.
The ground gradually begun sloping, miniature hills shaped and dressed like rocky mountains, spaced at intervals, a field's length from the road. The rolling landscape held surprises; quaint earthen towns that appeared from nowhere, drystone towers and walls, an army of young pine trees. We were off road for most of the day, sometimes pushing the bikes, but even so we made good distance.
I love the half-finished appearance of the buildings out here. Baked by sun, yellow lime and breezeblocks make up the exteriors of houses, sometimes dusty timbers filling the gaps, sometimes just gaps. Always flowers on the sills. A conglomerate tangle of telephone wires over every street. Faded paint on doors shows you where the sun hits most. We count over ten vultures circling one village.
In the evening we make Burgos and I am really struck by the beauty of the city. It is partly due to the low sunlight but the place makes a good first impression. Following the river under the new spring leaves of the plane trees feels relaxed. It is a city with a mellow air. Beyond the shade and slow water, the cathedral spires burn in a burgeoning glow; metal and stone softening wherever the sun reaches, to the colour of coral.